During a congressional hearing this week, Sen. Eric Schmitt (R-MO) claimed former special counsel Jack Smith once attended an NBA game in Georgia to tie him to Fulton County’s prosecution of President Donald Trump, but according to a report, the texts the senator cited did not reference any basketball team names.
Schmitt accused Smith of perjury for allegedly lying about attending an Atlanta Hawks NBA game on Feb. 3, 2024, but Smith denied he was ever there. The witness later recalled that he watched an Iowa Hawkeyes college women’s basketball team play in Maryland that day.
Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) then suggested her Republican colleague confused the Atlanta Hawks with the Iowa Hawkeyes in his line of questioning presented to Smith. In response, Schmitt criticized Klobuchar for favoring the former federal prosecutor and rejected the assumption that he made an error.
While he was confident in his questions, Schmitt apparently had no definitive evidence that placed Smith at the Georgia basketball game over two years ago.
Texts obtained by the Hill from the Department of Justice make no reference to either the Atlanta Hawks or the Iowa Hawkeyes. Rather, the texts only mentioned seating for Smith and his staff. At least one of those texts appeared to be featured on the poster board Schmitt had prepared for the hearing, noting “109 Row 1 reserved for Jack.”
At one point during the hearing, Smith said he remembered going to the Maryland basketball game because Caitlin Clark was playing for the Iowa Hawkeyes at the time. Over a month after the game, one of the texts referenced Clark.
Schmitt’s staff said the senator did not possess any texts that referenced Clark.
“Senator Schmitt has never seen texts referencing Caitlin Clark, hence why he asked what game Jack Smith was at,” a spokesperson for Schmitt said. “Had Schmitt received those text messages of course he wouldn’t have asked which game he attended. As the Senator has since said, he learned the one thing he and Jack Smith have in common is they are a fan of college sports.”
The Missouri Republican tried to link Smith to Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, who admitted to having a romantic relationship with the special prosecutor she hired to lead Georgia’s 2020 election interference investigation into Trump. Willis made the confession a day before the Atlanta Hawks game, so Schmitt presumably thought Smith may have visited Willis while he was down there.
Smith said he never met Willis or her former special prosecutor. Republicans have accused Smith of coordinating with the state-level prosecutors who were investigating Trump.
ERIC SCHMITT DEFENDS PERJURY TRAP AIRBALL AT JACK SMITH HEARING: ‘NOT A MISTAKE’
The former special counsel handled two investigations into Trump. One focused on his alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 election, and the other was over his alleged mishandling of classified documents after leaving office in 2021. Both cases were eventually dismissed before Trump returned to the White House last year.
Following Smith’s resignation, which came 10 days before Trump’s second inauguration, Republicans continue accusing Smith of conducting politically motivated prosecutions of the president and misleading Congress.